


To Have Been Stronger Than a Moment

by Siria



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-18
Updated: 2020-08-18
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:55:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25975525
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Siria/pseuds/Siria
Summary: How the smallest work of his hands lasts longer than Joe thought possible.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 32
Kudos: 262





	To Have Been Stronger Than a Moment

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to sheafrotherdon and celli for betaing.

The evening air was unusually chilly—or maybe it just felt that way after more than a century spent in lands that never knew a winter. There was a bite to the air that might have been a sign that there would be snow before the night was through. Iosif couldn't quite remember. Out of practice. 

He found himself edging a little closer to one of the campfires that had sprung up on a stretch of flat wasteland outside of the city walls, and then closer still when none of the group which had lit it seemed to object to his presence—especially not once he was careful to politely share with them such food as he had left. Iosif spoke no more than a word or two of their language, but between those words and gestures he was able to work out that they were likely pilgrims, come to visit one of the city's monasteries or churches, though whether in search of a miracle or in thanks for one, he didn't know.

Iosif looked over his shoulder at the city walls and its domes and spires, starting to grow indistinct against the darkening sky. Kolya would be back soon enough, he knew, having found them lodgings and a carter to help them haul the baggage that their now-lamed horse no longer could. But even such a finite wait for his Nikolai was too long and Iosif was, without putting too fine a point on it, bored.

The others gathered around the campfire traded stories, but though to judge by the laughter and the occasional noises of gleeful disbelief they were good ones, Iosif couldn't follow them. He had to content himself for a while with watching the flames of the campfire, and with using his knife to whittle aimlessly at a piece of wood that had fallen out of the fire. But then he noticed a pair of bright, dark eyes watching him from across the circle: a little one old enough to be weaned but not yet so old that he didn't get shy at the sight of a stranger.

Iosif grinned at him, and had an idea, and wielded his knife with a little more purpose. He had one false start but then he figured out the knack of it. It was like sketching the face of someone you'd never seen before, letting the paper and charcoal guide you. This bit of pine, Iosif realised, wanted to be a horse. By the time Kolya emerged from the city gates, it was fully dark and Iosif had made a charger that Andromache herself wouldn't have disdained to ride. 

True, it was rough and one leg was ever so slightly shorter than the others. "But," Iosif told the delighted little boy when he presented him with the toy, "it is still a fine steed."

"I leave you alone for less than half a day," Nikolai murmured to him as they heaved their bundles and baggage into the back of the cart, "and already you've maimed yet another horse."

"You get very ironic whenever we come this far north, beloved," Iosif told him. "I am beginning to remember this now."

Just before they got to the city gates, Iosif turned and looked back. Silhouetted against the campfire, the little boy was watching them go, and he raised his hand in farewell.

  


* * *

  


Over the years, it became something more than a habit but less than a true hobby. Josef made horses and foxes and rabbits and ducks, though as his skills improved dolls became a particular favourite. He gave them soft, stuffed bodies and jointed limbs and clothes made out of fabric scraps. Sometimes, if funds were tight, Josef could barter one for a loaf of bread or a bowl of porridge, but mostly he gave them away. In the corners of the world where they tended to end up, there was always a small child somewhere whose day could do with a little brightening. 

Andy clearly found the amount of time that Josef spent on each one bemusing. "Wouldn't the gift of a skill be better?" she asked, nodding at Josef's latest work in progress. "Better that they know how to shoe a horse, or stitch a wound."

"It would be more _practical_ ," Josef said as he laid out his paint-pots, ready to add the finishing touches. Red for the cheeks, of course, but what else? "But practical doesn't necessarily mean better, as I'm very sure you know, Andromache."

Andy rolled her eyes and poured herself another glass of slivovitz. By now the bottle at her elbow was almost empty. "I know what I think about an empty scabbard or an empty belly."

"Just for that," Josef said, dabbing his brush in the pot of dark brown paint and starting to outline the hair. "I'm going to model this doll after you. When I present her to Jitke I will say, 'Miss, for your birthday, here is a doll with brown hair and hazel eyes and a look on her face like she has pushed many grown men out of windows—'"

Andy heaved out a sigh.

"'—which is why you should call her Andrejka."

The door opened and Nikolas came inside, snow on his collar and a stack of books under his arms. He looked from Josef to Andy and back again. "What did I miss now?"

"Nothing, nothing, _tesoro_ ," Josef said, carefully filling in the hair with fine strokes. "Only that Andromache is now the Muse of Dolls. Very like Euterpe, except that she cannot play the flute or carry a tune."

And Nikolas had known them both now for many centuries, so he passed no comment on that, just stooped to press a kiss to Josef's forehead and set about making their lunch.

  


* * *

  


For Joe and Nicky, visiting a museum was something like a bittersweet comedy: seeing fragments of past lives, part remembered and part imagined, arranged in a way that was sometimes true and sometimes not. It was the same now. Joe stood with his hands in his pockets and contemplated the big map which covered part of the wall at the entrance to this special exhibition. It was always a matter of curiosity to him, how rarely it seemed he was able to predict what people would find important in two or three hundred years' time. 

If you had asked him in 1848 to sketch a map of this city and plot out the most historically important places, would he have produced one that looked like this? Maybe. Maybe not.

But there regardless was the little street they had lived on. Had their apartment been three buildings down from the corner, or four? Joe couldn't remember. All he could swear to was that it had been over a fishmongers and that the stink in the summertime had been unbearable if they kept their windows open.

So early on a sunny weekday morning, there were few other people in the museum. Joe and Nicky could amble through at their own pace, Nicky stopping to conscientiously read each and every label in full, and Joe lingering at a case only when something inside it made his hands itch for a pencil and sketchbook.

And then one case stopped him short. _Daily Life in 1848_ read one large label and on a shelf below it was a doll. 

A doll that Joe had made.

After a while, Nicky came to find him. "I thought it was my job to lose track of time inside museums and your job to rescue me. Is everything alright?"

Joe shrugged, shook his head. "Everything's fine." Because it was, and what else was there to say? In the case sat a doll he'd made. The paint was a little faded, worn away at the tip of her nose, and her right hand was entirely gone. She was in a blue satin dress that wasn't one he'd made, but that was fine. He'd made this doll to be loved, and she'd clearly been loved well.

Joe couldn't quite remember the face of the little girl to whom he'd given the doll, but he knew she'd worn her hair in two thick, dark plaits that hung down to her waist, just like one of his own sisters had so very long ago. If he was prompted, he thought, he'd probably still be able to recite the rhymes she and her brothers and sisters had chanted as they played in the street, dodging around horses and errand boys.

_Donated by the Family of Gisela Kohn_. Judging by the date, the gift of a daughter, or even a granddaughter. It made Joe glad to think of this bit of wood and paint and how it had been clasped close over the years, made warm by affection and human hands, and then turned into something different again: the sliver of a girlhood become the present of the past.

The doll smiled serenely out at him from its case. Joe smiled back at it.

"Didn't you make a doll like that once?" Nicky asked.

"Yes," Joe said, and took Nicky's hand. "Let me tell you about it."


End file.
